Ed, Edd n Eddy

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First Look. The Eds come out in force.

By Juan Castro

Among the greatest "no duh" moves in the games industry is the videogame tie-in to a popular cartoon. It seems no television show with an arguably beefy audience can escape. Look at the Rugrats, Fairly OddParents and SpongeBob SquarePants franchises, for example. Next on this list is the upcoming Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures game from Midway, which is of course based on the Cartoon Network program Ed, Edd n Eddy.

The show stars a trio of pimple-faced adolescents trying to survive everyday life in their neighborhood. This means they deal with the usual lot of teenage-type stuff, including: girls, girls, girls, acne and girls. Ok, so that's not exactly true. Instead, the Eds spend most of their time trying to swindle money so they can buy jawbreakers. In the show, this means about a half hour of animated hilarity. In terms of gameplay, finding cash for jawbreakers translates into a very kid-friendly mix of action, stealth and platform elements.

Interestingly, you play as all three Eds simultaneously throughout the entire game. You decide whom the "point man" man will be at any given time, with the other two characters controlled by the CPU. Most of the puzzles and obstacles in the game require the specific skills and abilities of one (or more) of the characters, so you'll need to switch between the constantly. As for the skills themselves, one character can form a tower with the other two to reach high places. Another uses his head as a battering ram while the other can form a trampoline to jump over barriers.

In addition to these abilities, each character also claims a secondary ability of some sort. One character uses a slingshot, for example, while the other Eds use a pocketwatch and head, both as weapons. You can also find items such as stink bombs to throw at other kids from the neighborhood. This also plays into some of the puzzles in the game. It's an interesting concept, if only because it's kinda funny. Unfortunately, only one level of Ed, Edd n Eddy was included in the current preview build, but it still granted a pretty good indication of where the game is headed.

Midway promises 10 levels in the finished product, but at this point it's hard to gauge how long each level will be or if each level splits between several areas. Midway admits Ed, Edd n Eddy shoots for the eight-to-twelve year-old demographic, so the difficulty will most likely be toned down from your average platformer. Also, the game will follow some of the plotlines of the popular television show, so fans will definitely appreciate that.